Wine-bottle storage systems have included various configurations of racks, shelves, and the like. Some systems, especially those intended for long-term wine storage, have included environmental controls to regulate temperature, for example. Some conventional wine-bottle storage systems have been configured solely for their functional aspects. These systems included, for example, traditional shelving and racks that could be used for storing a wide array of differently shaped items. These systems are easily adapted to particular storage environments and settings.
For many people, wines have possessed a certain romance about them that extended to the manner and settings in which wines have been made. This romance has been exploited in commercial aspects of the wine business, such as wholesale or retail wine sales, and in restaurants. This romance has also been exploited by individual wine consumers, especially those who purchase wine in sufficient quantity to create a personal supply requiring some kind of storage. In these and other settings, consumers and merchants have sought wine-bottle storage systems that could be configured to display the bottles in a manner that hearkens to or draws on the romance of wine.
Some previous approaches to design more evocative wine-bottle storage systems have involved the use of wine barrels or portions thereof. However, many of these approaches lacked authenticity. Other approaches provided limited storage capacities. Still other designs presented various difficulties in accessing individual bottles. Other barrel-based storage systems for bottles employed standard horizontal racks that did not take full advantage of the storage density within the barrels.
An example of a previous storage system that was based on a barrel is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,216. In particular, the design split the barrel in half, lengthwise. The two halves were then coupled with one another by hinges positioned on one side of the barrel. In this manner, the barrel could be opened and closed like a clam shell, whereby one half of the barrel served as a storage base and the other half functioned as a lid. A plurality of elongated dowels was positioned within the lower half of the barrel so that the dowels extended transversely with a long axis of the barrel. The dowels were positioned to be spaced laterally from one another, allowing a plurality of information cards to be supported by the dowels. However, this disclosure did not teach the storage of bottles within the barrel.
In another storage system, disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,460,221, a barrel was configured to store various elements of a wine bar, such as glassware, bottles, and the like. In this design, a wine barrel was configured with racks in a lower half of the wine barrel for storing a small number of bottles. An upper half of the barrel was provided with brackets for supporting stemware. The upper half of the barrel was further designed to display a single, centrally located bottle. One or more doors were provided at one end of the barrel for accessing the contents of either or both the upper and lower half of the barrel. However, this design did not efficiently orient the racks so that a maximum number of bottles could be stored within the barrel. Moreover, environmental conditions were not considered within this design, making it less desirable for long-term storage of wine.